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Gerald Moore (scholar)

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Gerald Moore
Born22 August 1924
Died27 December 2022(2022-12-27) (aged 98)
Sussex, England
EducationEmmanuel College, Cambridge
OccupationIndependent scholar
Notable workModern Poetry from Africa (1963)

Gerald Moore (22 August 1924 – 27 December 2022) was an English independent scholar.

Biography

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Moore was born in Chiswick, London, to Rex Moore, an exhibitions officer, and his wife, Norah (nee Sturdee), an actor, on 22 August 1924.[1] He went to Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire, and when he was 17 years old joined the Royal Navy, serving in the Atlantic and Arctic convoys during World War 2.[1] He later studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he earned a first-class degree in English.[1][2]

Moore taught at many universities, including the Sussex, Hong Kong, Makerere, Ife, Port Harcourt, Jos and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His last teaching post was at Trieste. He was primarily a scholar of contemporary African anglophone and francophone poetry. With Ulli Beier, he edited the influential Modern Poetry from Africa (1963), a comprehensive anthology, republished in 1984 as The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry.[3]

Personal life

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In 1949, he married Joy Fisher, a librarian, with whom he had three children.[1] The couple divorced in 1973, and Moore subsequently married Miriam Garzitto.[1]

Moore lived in Worthing, Sussex,[4] before moving to Udine in Italy. He later returned to Sussex, in 2010, after his wife Miriam died. Moore died on 27 December 2022, at the age of 98.[1]

Major works

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  • Seven African Writers. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
  • Modern Poetry from Africa (ed. with Ulli Beier). Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963 (Penguin African Books). Revised as The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, 4th edition, 1999.
  • African Literature and the Universities. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press (for Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1965.
  • The Chosen Tongue: English Writing in the Tropical World. Harlow: Longmans, 1969.
  • Wole Soyinka. London: Evans Brothers, 1971.
  • Twelve African Writers. London: Hutchinson, 1980 (University Library for Africa).

As translator:

  • Beti, Mongo. The Poor Christ of Bomba. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland, 2005.
  • Beti, Mongo. Remember Ruben. Heinemann, London, 1980
  • Tchicaya U Tam'si. Selected Poems. Heinemann, London, 1970
  • Lopes, Henri. The Laughing Cry. Readers International, London, 1987

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Bennett, Catherine (2 February 2023). "Gerald Moore obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  2. ^ "Gerald Moore". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 8 January 2022.
  3. ^ Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier, ed. (1998). The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry. London and New York: Penguin.
  4. ^ Moore, Gerald (2002). "Senghor: Poet of Night". Research in African Literatures. 33 (4): 51–59. doi:10.1353/ral.2002.0117.